The State We're In, 23 June 2012. A teacher in the UK turns around a problem class, only to get fired. A teacher in Mexico sings songs to keep her class calm during a shooting. And a South African journalist believes that her ancestors may be calling her to become a sangoma, or traditional healer. But it's a calling she’d rather not heed.
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When teacher Leonora Rustamova in Britain agreed to teach the class no-one else wanted, she had no idea what she was in for. Leonora - or Miss Rusty, as her students called her - couldn’t get them to read anything: until she wrote a book about them. It was a huge success. And then... she got fired.
The students went on strike, but she never got her job back. Leonora and two of her old students, Greg Bratley and Martin Snell, tell host Jonathan Groubert the whole story. View photos.
'Stop! Don’t Read This' is available from Bluemoose Books. Support Miss Rusty on Facebook.
Miss Rusty on Channel Four News.
Martha Rivera Alanis isn’t exactly the kind of person who’d seek fame on YouTube.
She’s a dedicated kindergarten teacher in Monterrey, Mexico.
Earlier this year, gunfire from drug gangs came dangerously close to her class full of five and six-year-olds.
She tells Jonathan how she sang to her students to keep them calm – and how a video of the incident was seen by millions around the world.
There has always been a traditional healer, or sangoma, in Lesego Mangwanyane’s family.
And she believes - in fact fears - that her ancestors’ voices may be calling her to become one. But she’s resisting their call. View photos.
Read more about Lesego's story in RNW's Global Perspective series - in association with SAFM in South Africa.
![Cover of "Stop! Don't Read This"<br>© Alison O'Brien, Hebden Bridge - http://bluemoosebooks.com/](http://www.rnw.nl/data/files/imagecache/rnw_slideshow/stop_dont_read_this.jpg "Cover of "Stop! Don't Read This"")
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Thanks, Julie - glad you're catching us on WNYC. I'm not sure I agree with you, though, on the potential harm her novelistic depiction had on her class. The two young men were asked directly what they made of the depictions and answered that they thought they were fair and fun. Of course they don't speak for the entire class, but do remember that when she was let go, the student body of the school went on strike to support her. Our sense is that the concern you raise is more theoretical than actual - no one, it seems -- had any problem with her novel writing. I have an idea: if you would like to ask a question directly to Miss Rusty, go ahead and we'll get her to answer back. Cheers, Greg.
Hi Greg, thanks very much for your thoughtful reply. I guess my question for Miss Rusty is: As she was writing the novel, did she ever worry about how intimate, or not intimate, the writing should be, or about how to balance authenticity with the possibility that she could hurt a student's feelings or make him/her feel exposed or misunderstood or invisible? A teacher is already in a powerful position. To me, taking on the role of omniscient narrator makes her that much more powerful. I'd also love to hear what other listeners' reactions were to the story.
First of all, I'm very excited that WNYC is carrying TSWI; I've enjoyed listening. Second, a comment on the Miss Rusty story. To me, it seems really inappropriate for a teacher to be characterizing her students physically and emotionally for all the students in the classroom to see. I have no doubt that her intentions were good, and I don't think she should have been fired, but a novelist's gaze and an educator's instruction are two very different things. I don't think the segment fully grappled with why it might be fraught for a student to have such an intimate view of how her teacher sees her and her classmates.
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